Overview

Spain - in full, the Kingdom of Spain - is a country located mostly in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula.

Spanish territory also includes the Balearic Islands in the Mediterranean, the Canary Islands in the Atlantic Ocean off the African coast, and two autonomous cities in North Africa, Ceuta and Melilla, that border Morocco. With an area of 504,030 km², Spain is the second largest country in Western Europe after France.

Further information

Autonomous communities and cities of Spain

Spain is divided in 17 parts called autonomous communities. "Autonomous" means that each of these autonomous communities has its own Executive Power, its own Legislative Power and its own Judicial Power. These are similar, but not the same, to states in the United States of America, for example.

Spain has fifty smaller parts called provinces. In 1978 these parts came together, making the autonomous communities. Before then, some of these provinces were together but were broken. The groups that were together once before are called "historic communities": Catalonia, Basque Country, Galicia and Andalusia.

The Spanish language is the official language in every autonomous commmunity but six autonomous communities have also other official languages:

Spain also has two cities on the north coast of Africa: Ceuta and Melilla. They are called "autonomous cities" and have simultaneously the majority of the power of an autonomous community and also power of provinces and power of municipalities.

Education in Spain

The education system in Spain is organised into mainstream education and Enseñanzas de Régimen Especial (specialised education). Primary education (6 to 12) and compulsory secondary education (12 to 16) correspond to basic education, which consists of ten years of free and compulsory schooling for all pupils.
Mainstream education comprises:

Pre-primary education (Educación Infantil): it is the first stage in the education system and it is non-compulsory. It is divided into two stages: the first one, up to the age of 3, and the second, from 3 to 6 years of age

Primary education (Educación Primaria): it is the first compulsory stage of the system. It covers six years of instruction, divided into three two-year cycles. It is normally completed between the ages of 6 and 12.

Secondary education In the Spanish education system, secondary education is comprised of compulsory secondary and post-compulsory secondary. The former - Educación Secundaria Obligatoria (ESO) it is divided into four courses and it is ordinarily completed from the ages of 12 to 16, it covers four school years and must be completed after finishing primary education. Successful students are awarded a Secondary Education Certificate, which is necessary for entering further optional education as is Bachillerato for their University or Formacion Professional (Vocational Studies).

Post-compulsory secondary education includes two options: the two-year Bachillerato (form 16 to 18), and intermediate vocational training ciclos formativos, the duration of which varies between one and a half or two years.
Secondary education also includes artistic professional Music and Dance education, intermediate professional Sports and Plastic Arts and Design education, which belong to enseñanzas de régimen especial. This also covers language education. This provision, although not regarded as part of secondary education, belongs to Enseñanzas de Régimen Especial, which may be started at the age of 16 or 14 if the language to be studied is different from the one studied during ESO.
Enseñanzas de Régimen Especial are non-compulsory and structured into different levels and degrees leading to different qualifications and certificates.

The vocational training is also a common possibility after ESO or after the Spanish Baccalaureate. There are two different types of programs: Middle Grade Training Cycles (Ciclos Formativos de Grado Medio), which have the ESO diploma as a requirement, and Superior-level Training Cycles (Ciclos Formativos de grado Superior), which have the Spanish Baccalaureate as the principal requirement. After completion of the Superior-level Training Cycle, students are entitled to direct entrance to several related University degrees (source wikipedia)

University education: Once students have finished their Bachillerato, they can take their University Entrance Exam (Pruebas de Acceso a la Universidad, popularly called Selectividad) which differs greatly from region to region.
University in Spain is organised into three cycles, namely Bachelor, Masters and Doctorate, with variable duration and a minimum required number of ECTS credits.

Examinations in Spain

The Spanish Bachillerato is the post-16 stage of education, comparable to the A Levels (England) or Highers (Scotland)in the UK, the French Baccalaureate in France or the International Baccalaureate.

There are two parts, a core curriculum with the compulsory subjects, and a specialist part with a few pre-selected branches to choose from.

The core curriculum is as follows:

Spanish Language and Literature: 1st and 2nd years

Co-official language (in case of Catalan, Basque and Galician): 1st and 2nd years

First foreign language (English, French, German or Italian; mostly English): 1st and 2nd years

In 1997, the Grupo 9 Universidades was launched. It consists in a consortium between universities, in order to offer open election courses at distance, located in the following regions: Balearic Islands, Cantabria, Castilla-La Mancha, Extremadura, La Rioja, Basque Country, Pública de Navarra, Oviedo and Zaragoza.was launched based in

In Catalonia, the Open University of Catalonia (UOC) was created in 1999 as the first completely online university making a more intensive use of the possibilities brought by Internet. For instance, the use of social media applications and the development of a virtual campus in order to ease the traditional socialization and exchanges processes proper of physical campuses into a virtual environment. Its educational offer is geared towards technical careers related to communication, computing and new technologies, without neglecting other more traditional teachings.

Since 2000, various other universities located in Catalonia such as the Universitat Autónoma de Barcelona (UAB), the University of Barcelona (UB) and the Universidad Politécnica de Catalunya (UPC) launched degrees that could be coursed online, or semi-virtually. Besides, the Universidad Privada Ramon Llul developed online and distance teaching courses through its center La Salle. Through video recorded courses and an Open Campus based on Learning by doing and Scenario Centred Curriculum methodologies they provide online courses centered on business or ICT careers.

In 2002, the Universidad de Málaga launched its fully virtual open election courses. Nowadays the offer of courses remains quantitatively limited (for the course 2012/2013 only 5 courses are offered fully on-line) but its territorial scope has been enlarged to nine Andalusian universities which currently offer all together 80 courses through the Andalusian Virtual Campus (CAV).

In 2001, the ADA Madrid (Aula a Distancia Abierta) project was launched with the financial support of the Education council of the Madrid Community. Its purpose is to offer students with an open election of courses not available in their own university. Some of the universities involved are: UniversidadAutónoma de Madrid (UAM), Politécnica de Madrid (UPM), Carlos III, Universidad Complutense de Madrid and Universidad de Alcalá.

Always in Madrid, the Open University of Madrid (UDIMA) was approved in 2006 and is oriented towards the application of new technologies to education. Its main shareholder is the Business School's Center for Financial Studies. Besides, the Madrid Training Institute (IMF) focuses especially on administrative careers and sustainable energies.

In 2007, the Valencian International University (VIU) launched its online university focused on audiovisual careers. Finally, in 2008 the International University of La Rioja (UNITE) was launched mainly centered in information and communication technologies (ICT). Other public universities providing education at distance are:
Universidad Virtual de Salamanca (USAL); Universidad de Sevilla (US); Instituto Universitario de Posgrado (IUP); Universidad de Cádiz (UCA); Universidad de Cantabria (UNICAN); Universidad de la Rioja (UNIR); Universidad de Las Palmas de Gran Canaria (ULPGC); Universitat Pompeu Fabra (UPF); Universitat de Valencia (UV); Universidad de Zaragoza (UNIZAR); Universidad Rey Juan Carlos (URJC) and Universitat Jaume I (UJI).

There are also currently 23 private universities providing education at distance. All of them are listed here.

According to this chronology, it appears that Spanish universities have been more actively involved with providing traditional education at distance rather than with implementing eLearning courses exploiting the full potential of ICT and Internet. However, this situation begin to change during the last decade because of the increasing rates of penetration of Internet, successful initiatives such as the UOC which model of completely virtual university has been exported into Colombian and Argentina universities, and last but not least because of the increasing engagement and experimentation of public and private organizations into the eLearning field.

Regarding public support to distance education and eLearning, the Ministry of Education created in 1992 the Center for Innovation and Development of Distance Education (CIDEAD) which is integrated in the General learning throughout life actions. Its purpose is to coordinate and organize the elements and processes of distance education, as well as to facilitate access to education for adults and school-age students who because of personal, social, geographical situations, are unable to continue learning in the education system through the regular classroom regime.

Last but not least, the Center for Virtual Higher Education (CSEV) was launched in 2010 in order to ease the knowledge transfer processes between Ibero-American universities. This organization is a partnership between the UNED, Telefónica, Banco Santander, (through its Santander Universities Global Division), Hispasat and the Ministries of Education, Foreign Affairs and Science and Innovation. Currently, its academic Council involves 21 Spanish universities in order to design innovative activities and boost eLearning and virtual training in the field of Spanish and Latin American Higher Education organisations.

Regarding the commercial sector, it has developed different eLearning initiatives through partnerships with universities, trade unions or organizations focused in providing Adult Education and Life Long learning activities. For instance, Asscoiation of eLearning Providers (ApeL) was launched in 2001 and is currently composed by a partnership between 72 organizations engaged with eLearning provision. The complete list can be visited here. Its purpose is the promotion of the e-learning field and the defense of the interests of its providers in collaboration with organizations, agencies, public and private research and development centers, carrying out awareness, representation and negotiation activities.

Other interesting Spanish initiatives related to eLearning are:

The National Association of Distance Learning Centres (ANCED) is an organization for delivering Education and Training. Born non-profit association in 1977, it turned for profit in 1986 when a first agreement was signed with the National Agency for work (INEM) followed in 1998 with the signing of a new agreement with the Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs in order to improve the offer of training to disadvantaged groups, achieve better corporate governance and facilitate the provision of open and distance learning on line.

Quality procedures

Universities

In the area of quality assurance, Spain has a multifaceted array of quality assurance (QA) schemes and agencies in place at the national, regional and institutional levels. They only deal with teaching activities developed within of universities, since the evaluation of research is the responsibility of specialized agencies (which are currently being merged into a single one responsible for the evaluation of the National Plan for Research and Development). A separate set of quality assessment (QA) mechanisms are also developed for higher vocational education.

In 2001, after 10 years' experience in quality assurance, the Ley Organica de Universidades (LOU) formally introduced external QA mechanisms based on objective criteria and transparent procedures. Degree courses and qualifications were to be regulated by guaranteeing the quality of recognised degrees and syllabuses. Article 13 of the LOU states that assessment and accreditation are the responsibility of the National Agency for Quality Assessment and Accreditation (ANECA) and such other higher education QA bodies as may be established by regional legislation.

In 2002, in compliance with the LOU, the government created the ANECA. This agency is a Foundation whose aim is to provide external quality assurance for the Spanish higher education system and to contribute to its constant improvement. ANECA has developed several evaluation programmes in order to perform its activities (evaluation, certification and accreditation), with the purpose of integrating the Spanish system into the European Higher Education Area (EHEA):

Institutional programmes evaluation:

VERIFICA Programme: Evaluation of degree proposals designed according to the aims set for building the EHEA.

MONITOR Programme: Follow-up of an ex-ante accredited programme until it has to be submitted again in order to renew its accreditation.

Besides, the public administration shall guarantee the quality of training offers and cooperate with the definition and implementation of the evaluation process of the National Qualification and Vocational Education and Training System after consultation with the General Council on Vocational Education, and taking into account the responsibilities of the Autonomous Communities. The Ministry of Education and Science is coordinating the establishment of a quality network with the participation of the administrations of the Autonomous Communities as since 1996 and 11 autonomous regions have created their own quality assurance agencies.

Finally, the Spanish association for Quality provides a quality certification for virtual trainings called the UNE 61681 (under the ISO 9001 quality certification scheme). It is a certification of quality which clarifies the various training activities in key areas such as quality of content and resources used. Its use is limited to those training activities aimed at people wishing to enter the labor market and workers who want to improve their current employment status. It has therefore been developed to target providers of non-formal training, self-education, e-learning and blended learning.

Schools

Mainly sourced from Eurydice

In Spain, the evaluation of the education system is viewed as an essential element in order to improve the quality of education, since it constitutes a valuable instrument for the monitoring and assessment of both the functioning and the results of the education system, as well as for the improvement of processes delivering these results. This is evidenced by the fact that the legal framework stresses the need to evaluate all the elements making up the education system: pupils' learning processes, educational results, curriculum, teachers' performance, teaching processes, the managerial function, the running of schools, educational inspection and education authorities themselves. The collection of objective data and their rigorous analysis facilitates the knowledge and appraisal of the achievements and deficiencies present in both the entire system and all its levels and elements. Thus, the necessary foundations are laid for an effective decision-making, which should have an effect on the process for the improvement of the education system.

The 2006 Ley Orgánica de Educación, LOE (Act on Education), devotes titles VI and VII to educational evaluation and inspection, respectively, and considers both to be key aspects to improve the education system. Thus, evaluation is an essential element to increase the education system’s transparency, which must be applied to all its areas, including inspection. In turn, with the aim of ensuring the compliance with regulations on education, the educational inspection takes part in the evaluation of the education system and its elements. Evaluation procedures of all areas and elements of the education system have been established, which has committed the relevant authorities and the different agents of the system to account for the current situation and its evolution. All these evaluation tasks are aimed at improving the quality of the education system.

The general evaluation of the education system at the non-university levels is the responsibility of the Ministry of Education, through the National Institute of Education Evaluation (INEE). This body, reporting to the State Secretariat for Education and Vocational Training, works in collaboration with the relevant evaluation institutions of the different Autonomous Communities. The latter are responsible for the evaluation of the education system within their respective territory. The reports drafted since 2000 regarding the general evaluation of education can be found here. Those reports generally review different indicators structured along three main axes: Schooling and educational contexts, education financing and educational results and success rates. For more precise and targeted analysis (for instance primary education, or a specific region) please visit the following link.

Regarding household access to ICT, it shows that 68,7% has access to a computer at home (including PC or laptop). Regarding fixed (wired) broadband connection, it reaches 24.50% of the overall population and its penetration rate increased 4,9% from 2010 to 2011. However the total percentage of fiber connections in total broadband is still low with a rate of only 1.55%.

Regarding specific ICT indicators put up by the Bank of Spain [1], it indicates for 2011 a level of business broadband penetration around 96%, and shows that 20% of businesses have used eCommerçe for at least 1% of their total purchase. On the other side 11% of businesses state to have reach at least 1% of their overall sale through this mean.

In relation to OECD statistics regarding trade of ICT goods, Spain exported in 2009 around 5.428 and imported for 28.238 millions of US dollars. Another interesting figure of 2006 from the OECD Science, Technology and Industry Scoreboard show Spain ranking as the second country with more bot-infected computers with an overall rate of 4.7% computer infected per 100 computers connected to the Internet.

The Eurostat individuals' level of Internet skills survey shows that in 2011, 28% of the population aged 16 to 74 carried out 1 or 2 of the six Internet-related items used to group the respondents into levels of Internet skills. This results locates Spain just below the EU27 average which is 30% of the population. Finally according to ITU and its Internet users data disaggregated by gender, Spain had 65,7% male users in relation to 59,5% female users in 2009.

The Plan Avanza is the main ICT policy for the Information Society and has already gone through a first action plan of five years and is currently launching its second action plan. The OECD analysis of the impact of the first Plan Avanza resumes its mission and strategy as follows: “Plan Avanza is Spain’s umbrella strategy for the advancement of the Information Society (IS). The Plan was approved in 2005 by the national Senate and launched early in the following year with its first 2006-2009 Action Plan. The Plan operates under the direct authority of the Ministry of Industry, Tourism and Trade (MITT), specifically under the State Secretariat of Telecommunications and the Information Society (SSTIS). Implementation responsibilities are shared by the SSTIS and red.es, a public enterprise also charged with managing two key departments which directly contribute to the Plan’s objectives: CENATIC (the National Centre for the Application of ICTs based in Open Source) and INTECO (the National Communications Technology Institute). The strategy’s objectives reflect both the technological and socio-economic dimensions necessary for consolidating the knowledge economy in Spain, as well as the need to converge with other EU member countries in key IS dimensions. While the Plan’s high-level objectives are inherited from those of the European Commission’s i2010 strategy: A European Information Society for growth and employment. These have been adapted to fit the specific challenges and needs of the Spanish context. Specifically, the three strategic objectives are: Increasing diffusion of ICTs in the Spanish economy; Closing the Digital Divide to improve quality of life for citizens; Increasing levels of ICT spending. The resulting objectives have translated into four pillars of activity, or action areas, which are: The digital citizenship, digital economy, digital public services and digital context”.

The implementation strategy of the Plan Avanza allowed the implementation of actions in cooperation with the different autonomous communities through cooperation agreements and performances in cofinancement. In 2006, 19 agreements were signed with 59 cities and all autonomous communities. A list of reports regarding the Plan Avanza development in each Autonomous Communities can be acceded here.

According to the current executive summary of the Plan Avanza2: “On July 16th 2010, the Council of Ministers approved the 2011-2015 Strategy for Plan Avanza 2. This second stage gives continuity to Plan Avanza’s course of action. It includes projects already in progress and updates initial objectives to adapt them to the new challenges of the network society […] The first stage of Plan Avanza aimed at catching up with de European Union average, especially regarding coverage and connectivity. The 2011-2015 Strategy of Plan Avanza 2 seeks placing Spain on a leading position in terms of development and use of advanced ICT products and services. […] Taking the Plan Avanza approved in 2005 and the European framework in which this kind of measures are included as the starting point, 34 key challenges have been defined in the field of ICT, which Spain has to face. Under the current framework, “Plan Avanza 2 - 2011-2015 Strategy” will focus on achieving the following 10 objectives, which will contribute to overcoming the challenges identified:
1. Promoting innovative ICT processes in the Public Administration.
2. Spreading ICT in healthcare and for the welfare.
3. Modernizing the education and training model through the use of ICT.
4. Spreading telecommunication networks and increasing their capacity.
5. Spreading trustworthy ICT among citizens and enterprises.
6. Increasing the advanced use of ICT solutions among citizens.
7. Spreading the use of ICT business solutions in enterprises.
8. Developing technological skills in the ICT sector.
9. Strengthening the digital content sector and intellectual property rights in the current technological context and within the Spanish and European legal framework.
10. Developing green ICT”.

Internet in Education

Mainly sourced from EUN

All autonomous communities are fully responsible for the schools in their territory including the promotion of ICT in schools. ICT policies vary in emphasis and depth among the seventeen Autonomous Communities and the two Autonomous Cities (Ceuta and Melilla), although all plans address the common challenges that the adoption of ICT in school entails within that range of variation. As far as ICT use in school is concerned, there are periodic national and regional surveys that estimate how many teachers use ICT and what they use them for. All schools entering pilot plans are closely monitored through detailed evaluation plans.

According to the data compiled by the Spanish Ministry of education the average number of students per computer devoted to learning and apprenticeship tasks was for the period 2010-2011, 3,5 students per computer. In comparison the average number was 8 student per computer in 2005-2006. Regarding educational centers connected to Internet with broadband, the Community of Madrid, Murcia, Valencia, and Navarra were the better connected. Canarias, Melilla, Catalunya, Galicia, Ceuta, Castilla Leon and La Rioja were located above the overall Spanish average and Aragon, Cantabria, Asturias, Balears, Castillam Andalucia and Extremadura were the Autonomous Communities with less educational centers connected to broadband.

In relation to Internet connection in general, 86,9% of public educational centers are now connected to Internet, in comparison for 2005-2006 with only 45,4% connected ones. More in detail, primary schools are connected at 83,7%, secondary and professional training centers at 95,6% and private centers at 96,2%. Regarding the use of Internet by children between 10 and 15 years, it shows that 87,1% uses Internet at home (in comparison to 71,1% in 2006). Besides, 59,2% connected to Internet from school, 75,7% from home and 83,5% stated to use Internet to do their homework and 76% for entertainment.

In relation to specific ICT policies for education from autonomous communities, various
initiatives have raised awareness and increased the access, uptake and use of ICT by teachers, educators, students and life long learners. The complete picture can be found in the following report developed by Telefonica in 2009. Some of those initiatives are detailed below:

National Level

The Spanish Ministry of Education still coordinates some initiatives at a national level in collaboration with autonomous communities, like the ESCUELA 2.0.

Escuela 2.0 is a nationwide ICT plan for schools which is trying to generalize the access to hardware and digital contents in order to pedagogically integrate ICT into school life. The program counted with a budget of 200 million Euros for the 2009-2010 academic years and co-funded in equal parts by the Central Government of Spain and various Autonomous Regions (2010/2011). Currently the communities involved are: the Community of Madrid, Murcia, Valencia, Navarra, Canarias, Melilla, Catalunya, Galicia, Ceuta, Castilla Leon, Aragon, Cantabria, Asturias, Balears, Castilla, Andalucia and Extremadura.

The goal of the program is to transform the traditional fifth- and sixth-year Primary Education and first- and second-year Secondary Education classrooms into digital classrooms equipped with digital blackboards and wireless Internet connection, where the teacher has a laptop computer and each student work with an ultra-mobile personal computer. To that end, the Escuela 2.0 project is based on the following fundamental principles:

- Providing ICT resources to the students and the centers.

- Guaranteeing Internet connectivity in classrooms and homes.

- Ensuring the proper training for teaching staff.

- Generating and facilitating access to digital materials for teachers, students and families.

In complement to the previous, the EDA project is aimed at helping teachers incorporate ICT into their classroom activity by identifying advantages and disadvantages of using these new technologies and learning new approaches to teaching supported by ICT. Although initially started only for math teachers, EDA has expanded in recent years to other areas. The program is promoted by the Instituto Nacional de Tecnologías Educativas y de Formación del Profesorado (INTEF) in agreement with some autonomous communities.

In relation to private organisations, EducaRed is the Telefónica Foundation program to promote the educational use of ICT in teaching, benefiting teachers, students, parents. It us currently being implemented in seven countries: Spain, Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Chile, Mexico and Peru. Founded in Spain in 1998, EducaRed has two main objectives: improving the quality of education and promoting equal opportunities through new technologies. It is also worth mentioning that Telefonica and the Organización de Estados Iberoamericanos (OEI) published in 2009 a report "La integración de las TIC en la escuela, indicadores cualitativos y metodología de investigación" [2] in order to evaluate and measure the integration of ICT inside education organisations highlighting main methodological and research challenges and how to best address those.

In Andalusia, the department of education made in 2003 the use of open source software for all ICT equipments in public schools compulsory and developed a specific educational distribution entitled Gualalinex Edu. The global scope of the project involves 120.000 teachers and 1.800.000 students and cost-saving derivative from not using privative software have been estimated to be around 27 and 36 millions euros per year. The program has been increasingly enlarged and is currently being developed through the Escuela TIC 2.0 for Andalucia translating into providing 173.500 students of primary school with laptops installed with guadalinex.edu. The technical advice and support delivered towards teachers and students, and the administration of servers and software development is achieved by the Centro de Gestión Avanzado.

The Educational Telematic Network of Catalonia (XTEC) was created in 1988 by the Catalan Department of Education. Its aims are to provide Internet access to schools inasmuch as educational services dependent on the department and also to the entire educational community of Catalonia (at the exception of Higher Education organisations) a wide range of content, proposals and specific services. Besides, the portal Edu365.cat was created in 2001 to help structuring the educational use of the Internet by students and providing those with specific content and services such as multimedia self-learning and teaching support, mainly for the curriculum areas of Elementary, primary and secondary Education.

Extremadura launched a pioneer plan back into 2001 when evaluating the expenses of operative systems for its intranet: “After calculating the expenses for each, it was determined that the cost of MS Windows licenses surpassed 20,000,000 Euros. And that figure did not include educational and administrative applications; those applications would have to be developed or bought and adapted to the local infrastructure. After an analysis of cost and adaptability, the government decided to develop a customized and regionalized version of GNU/Linux. It would be called LinEx. The installation of LinEx was gradual until it finally reached all of the high schools in Extremadura under the form of Linex edu". In 2011, its development was abandoned and legate to a national organization for the maintenance of the software. Even tough the migration towards open source solutions from institutional organizations has been kept in the agenda.

Since 2010-2011 the programme Escuela 2,0 has enabled the provision of schools with over 24,000 laptops (4,000 for teachers), 576 lockers for the care, custody and recharge of batteries of the equipment supplied, and 610 new digital whiteboards, along with numerous training activities oriented towards teachers in order to reap a full benefit from the new digital classrooms. Besides, a pilot project around the use of digital textbooks is being developed in five centers of primary and secondary education, to establish the best methodological option for educational profitability of new material resources available to schools.

Copyright law in Spain

The principal dispositions of Copyright law applicable in Spain are contained in the book one of the Intellectual Property Law of 11 November 1987. A consolidated version of this law was approved by Royal Legislative Decree 1/1996 of 12 April 1996 implementing European directive 93/98/CEE and harmonizing certain aspects of copyright and related rights in the Information society. The full text in Spanish can be accessed at the UNESCO collection of National Copyright Laws.
The main limitations to the exclusive rights of exploitation are contained in Title III, Chapter 2. For instance regrading the “Right to the private copying and home playing”, the law explicitly allows to make private copies of copyrighted work without the author's consent for published works if the copy is not for commercial use. To compensate authors, the law establishes a compensatory tax associated with certain recording media (CDs, DVDs, cassettes), managed through societies of authors and editors (as SGAE and CEDRO). Such private copies of a protected work must be made for the private use (not collective, nor lucrative) of the copier (2º of art. 31): the author is compensated by a tax on the means of reproduction (e.g. photocopiers, blank cassettes) determined at article 25. However, computer programs can not be copied except for a backup copy (art. 99.2): they can be modified for the sole use of the person performing the modification (art. 99.4). Any work can be played in a "strictly home" environment (art. 20.1) without the author's consent. The moral rights of the author can only be exercised in the respect of the rights of owners of copies of the work or of rights to its exploitation, as detailed in article 14.
Besides, the “Right to receive and to impart information” states that lectures, addresses, judicial proceedings and other works of the same nature may be reproduced or communicated for the sole purpose of reporting on current events (art. 33.2). The proceedings of parliament and of public corporations may be reproduced or communicated for any purpose (art. 33.2). Works of news reporting may be reproduced in other news media, with identification of the author and remuneration (art. 33.1). Any work which can be seen or heard may be reproduced, distributed and publicly communicated for the purpose of, and only to the extent necessary for, providing information thereof in the context of reporting on current events (art. 34) Source: Wikipedia Copyright law of Spain.

Copyright law in Education

Regarding copyright law dispositions in relation to “Use for education and research”: Museums, libraries and similar public or cultural institutions may make reproductions of works for the purposes of research (art. 37). "Fragments" of written, sound or audiovisual works or "isolated" plastic, photographic, figurative or analogous works may be included in another original work for the purposes of teaching or research (fines docentes o de investigación) if the following conditions are met (art. 32):
the source work has been published;
it is included for citation or for analysis, commentary or critical judgment;
it is included with a citation of the source and the name of the author;
it is only included to the extent justified by the purposes of teaching or research.
Press reviews and collections are expressly covered by the provisions of article 32.
Source: Wikipedia Copyright law of Spain

It should be noted that the article that most affects teachers is the article 32.2 which states that no author's permission is needed by teachers in formal education to perform acts of reproduction, distribution and public communication of small fragments of works or individual works of plastic arts or photographic figurative character, excluding textbooks and university textbooks, when such acts are solely for illustration of its educational activities in the classroom, to the extent justified by the non-commercial purpose, provided that the works have already been disclosed and, except in cases where it is impossible to include the author's name and source. Besides, regarding licensing intellectual rights in the digital world, the article 32.2 raises an interesting debate about what should be ranged under the “classroom” banner. Should “classroom” be interpreted as only the physical classroom or should it enlarge its scope to the virtual classroom? [7]

The Intellectual Property Commission is also a specific agency set up as a national collegiate body attached to the Directorate General of Intellectual Property, Ministry of Education, Culture and Sport, with functions of mediation, arbitration and protection of rights in the intellectual property field. Despite the nature of the administrative body, it is not part of the organizational structure of the Ministry. Finally, the following project Authors copyrights in eLearning Platforms aims at delving into the reality of copyright in the digital environment, particularly in e-learning. It provides resources and guidance regarding the rights that affect the activities practiced in virtual education. It also specifies which are current copyright laws which can contradict eLearning aims and present possible solutions to some of these conflicts.

OER Initiatives in Spain

Introduction

As an introductory note, according to the OECD latest survey entitled “Open Educational Resources: Analysis of Responses to the OECD Country Questionnaire”, respondents for Spain estimated that 90% of all publicly produced or financed learning materials were available in a digital format [3]. It also states that OER activities in Spain were mostly created for young children (ISCED sectors 1 to 3). However, the panorama is more diverse. An analysis of the OpenCourseWare consortium partners, one of the most widespread Open education initiatives in Higher Education, reveals that in relation to EU27 member States there is a strong presence of Spanish universities, followed respectively by the UK and France. In relation to the results of this survey results, it should be noted that the report does not clarify whether there was a shared understanding and common definition of what stood as OER initiatives among the civil servants targeted by the above mentioned survey.

This is a common issue in the Spanish context. Though there is a wide range of initiatives, there is no common understanding of the nature of open and/or free licenses which leads to a confusion of Open Access initiatives with OER. This is partly due to the lack of leadership at policy level. Despite the number of initiatives at different educational levels and across the different autonomous communities, there is currently no legislation that covers this area or provides a common definition.

An illustration of the degree of confusion can be seen by looking at the results of a search of the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) using the category “Spain”. DOAJ is a directory of Open Access Journals that aims to increase the visibility and ease of use of open access scientific and scholarly journals thereby promoting their increased usage and impact. According to their definition, Open Access journals refer to journals that use a funding model that does not charge readers or their institutions for access. The BOAI definition of "open access" refers to the right of users to "read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of these articles" as mandatory for a journal to be included in the directory. However, DOAJ also listed repositories of digitized contents put at disposition by public institutions and Higher Education universities. The search identified 78 Open Access initiatives in Spain.

Starting out from the idea that OER are defined as content released under an open or free license, these initiatives can be divided into:

Open Access initiatives which basically make content available online but retain all authors rights under strict copyright policies (e.g. most of the digitized contents repositories offered by public institutions fall into this category)

Mixed OA and OER, which are the ones that enable either the use of copyright, either the use of Creative Commons licenses (generally BY-No Commercial – No derivative) and which generally relate to Phd, thesis and academic repositories piloted by Higher Education organizations

OER initiatives using only Creative Commons licenses which are divided between the ones that promote open licenses (BY-No Commercial – No derivative) and the ones that strictly promote free licenses (for instance CC BY-Share Alike or GPL- Gnu Public Licenses).

In general, information regarding authors rights was available either in a specific section on the home page, either in the “legal disclaimer” or in the “frequently Asked Questions” section. It should be noted that many of the reviewed initiatives did not state their Authors Rights policies clearly and were therefore categorized as “unclear” initiatives. In the sample, 19 initiatives used strict copyright, 20 had unclear policies, 28 offered the possibility to license either under strict copyright using either an open or free Creative Commons licenses, 10 allowed Creative Commons licenses and only one initiative had its contents released under the GPL free license. As a result among the 78 OA identified initiatives, just under half (39 initiatives) could be also labeled as OER.

Finally, it is interesting to see that most of those initiatives used online platforms based on free software (mostly Dspace and Moodle) and many of them also mentioned the use of open standards such as metadata for categorizing contents and easing their discoverability and retrieval.

International/national OER initiatives

Regarding OpenCourseWare initiatives delivered by Higher Education organisations some of the most known initiatives are listed below. It should be noted that because of Spanish is used in most central and latin american countries, several initiatives are based among partnerships between Spanish and Higher Educations organizations located overseas.

Universia started in 2000 as an Internet initiative in the Higher Education sector. It is promoted by a group of Spanish universities with the support of the Spanish University Rectors' Board (CRUE), the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC) and sponsored by the Santander Group. It is coordinated by the Foundation Universia and its OpenCourseWare courses are licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.5 ES. The network is composed by 1.1000 Universities located in 15 countries: Andorra, Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Spain, Mexico, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Portugal, Puerto Rico, Dominican Republic, Uruguay and Venezuela. The initiative counts with 12 websites, one for each country, and another global site which offers information and contents from across the network. Universia reach out 10.1 million students, 8 million users and 850,000 university teaching staff.

The OCW from UOC (Universitat Oberta de Catalunya) was launched in 2008 and offers over 100 courses licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 3.0. The OCW from the EHU (Universidad del País Vasco) was also launched in 2008 and its contents are licensed under CC BY NC SA 2.5 ES. The OCW from the UPM (Universidia Politecnica de Madrid) offers over 80 courses under a various range of Creative Commons license.

Other Spanish universities providing OpenCourseWare are the:

Universidad Carlos III de Madrid (English,Spanish);

Universidad de Alicante (Spanish);

Universidad de Cadiz (Spanish); Universidad de Cantabria (Spanish);

Universidad de Murcia (English,Spanish);

Universidad de Navarra (Spanish);

Universidad de Oviedo (Spanish); Universidad de Sevilla (Spanish);

Universidad de Zaragoza (Spanish);

Universidad Internacional de Andalucía (Spanish);

Universidad Nacional de Educacion a Distancia (Spanish);

Universidad Politecnica de Cartagena (Spanish);

Universidad Politecnica de Valencia (Spanish);

Universidad Politecnica Madrid (Spanish);

Universidade de Santiago de Compostela (Galician,Spanish);

Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona (Spanish, Catalan);

Universitat de Girona (Spanish, Catalan);

Universitat Jaume I (Spanish, Catalan).

MOOC

The strong involvement in OCW is also reflected in the take up of MOOCs in Spain. In June 2014 the European MOOC scoreboard lists 203 Massive Open Online Courses (MOOC). Spain is the country in Europe with most MOOCS. The first steps were taken by the Universidad Politecnica de Madrid which launched in 2012 a virtual course on cryptography Crypt4you.
31 different Higher Education institutions currently offer MOOCs in Spain, which is more than a third of the universities in the country. Interestingly, though the Universidad Nacional Española a Distancia (UNED) is the lead provider, more traditional universities than distance or open universities are offering these courses and this is the case of the two other lead universities, the Universidad Politécnica de Valencia and the Universidad de Cantabria, which together with UNED make up half the number of courses (according to the Catedra Telefonica report of Dec 2013).
The following table lists the universities that currently offer MOOCs in Spain and the platforms they use.

EHU - University del Pais Vasco - EHUSfera

IE Business School - Coursera

Universidad de Alicante- Miriada X

Universidad Autónoma de Barcelona - Coursera

Universidad de Alcalá - Miriada X

Universidad Autónoma de Madrid - Iversity

Universidad de Cantabria - Miriada X

Universidad Carlos III de Madrid - Miriada X

Universidad Cardenal Herrera (CEU) - Miriada X

Universidad Complutense de Madrid - Miriada X

Universitat de Girona - Miriada X

Universidad de Granada - Abierta GR

Universidad de Huelva - Miriada X

Universidad de Murcia - Miriada X

IESE Universidad de Navarra - Coursera

Universidad de Navarra - Coursesites

Universidad Nacional Española a Distancia - Miriada X/UNED Coma

Universidad Politécnica de Cartagena - Miriada X

Universidad Pompeu Fabra - Miriada X

Universidad Politécnica de Madrid - Miriada X

Universidad Politécnica de Valencia - Miriada X/UPV(X)

Universidad Rey Juan Carlos - Miriada X

Universidad de Salamanca - Miriada X

Universidad San Pablo (CEU) - Miriada X

Universidad Europea - Miriada X

Universidad de Castilla La Mancha - Miriada X

Universidad de Málaga - Miriada X

Universidad Católica de Murcia - Miriada X/Unidad MOOC

Universidad de Zaragoza - Miriada X

Universitat Abat Oliba (CEU) - Miriada X

As can be seen from this table the majority of the institutions use Miriada X, few use the most well-known platforms such as Coursera. In some cases after beginning with Miriada X the university is migrating to its own platform, this is the case of the UNED, the Universidad Politécnica de Valencia and the Universidad Católica de Murcia, while a couple of others, Universidad del País Vasco and Universidad de Granada use their own. As previously mentioned, there universities make up around 50% of the course offered, UNED, Universidad Politécnica de Valencia, and Universidad de Cantabria. The others offer between 1 and 5 courses each.

The MOOC sector continues to grow at present and the number of courses offered has doubled since the beginning of 2014 from 111 to 206 in June 2014 (European MOOC Scoreboard).

Other national OER initiatives

A range of other OER initiatives exist at national level in Spain, targeting diverse audiences such as teachers in primary and secondary schools, young students, families and lifelong learners:

The INTEF (Instituto Nacional de Tecnologías Educativas y de Formación del Profesorado) Recursos Educativos portal. This offers over one thousand educational resources oriented towards teachers, kids, young adults and parents. All its resources are licensed under Creative Commons BY – NC – SA 3.0. They are organized according to aims and in some cases around specific projects. For instance, WikiDidacTICa is a repository of best educational practices developed by teachers through collaborative processes. Its main goal is to build a useful space facilitating the gradual incorporation for all educational levels of digital tools as teaching resources. The resources are licensed under Creative Commons BY – NC – SA 3.0 and there is also a repository of images and sounds under Creative Commons BY-NC-SA.

CEDEC (National Centre for Curriculum Development in Non-Propietary Systems) was founded in 2009 as an agency of the Ministry of Education managed by INTEF and the Junta of Extremadura. Its aim is to design, promote and develop digital educational materials through the use of free software and make them available to the entire educational community.
The Virtual School for Parents is a web portal for parents, aimed at supporting them in their role, through the provision of useful documentary resources and spaces for dialogue around the issues of child education and related problems. The portal include a specific session called “Escuela Virtual”, where materials can be downloaded and a forum is available.

The Agrega project is a federation of learning Digital repositories used by 19 educational authorities in Spain. Each one of them has its own repository loaded with curricular learning objects with a clear focus towards integration and interoperability between Agrega learning repositories and other repositories located worldwide thanks to the use of generic GPL licensing. Regarding the curricular contents, those are being developed under Creative Commons licensing schemes, and can be used directly from a web site, offline or through a Learning Management System. Contents and applications are available in Spanish, Euskera, Catalan, Valencian, Gallego and English.

WikimediaEducativa was launched in 2010 by a group of post-graduate students at the private Universidad Camilo José Cela (UCJC). It aims at offering a repository of educational contents for teachers and students in primary schools. Contents are licensed under Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike 3.0.

Wikisaber was launched in 2007 by the foundation Wikisaber in partnership with various organisations (London Grid for Learning, Universidad de Salamanca, Fundación Pastor de Estudios Clásicos and the Fundación Germán Sánchez Ruipérez) and has been financed as a European Fund for Regional Development project.

Red Educa was an initiative launched by an individual, Laura Soulié, between 2005-2008 and which aimed at providing educational contents under Creative Commons to all teachers and educators dealing with ICT use into their classrooms. Another OER initiative launched in 2007 by an individual, Marifé Lara Romero, also targets teachers in primary and secondary schools.

EducaRed was launched between 2008-2012 by the Telefonica Foundation and aimed at offering resources and methodologies to introduce the use of ICT and Internet inside educational organisations.

Edukateka was created by the Gabriel Piedrahita Uribe Foundation (FGPU) and aims to provide free quality materials to teachers, school managers and trainers. It also offers virtual training in order to help them enrich their use of ICT inside their school environments. It also designs and implements interactive online spaces with useful and valuable resource for teachers (Classroom Project Manager, Collaborative Project Planner, Interactive Curriculum 2.0).

The Observatory for CyberSociety is an interdisciplinary space for debate and reflection, where digital technologies are assessed and analyzed from several perspectives, considering their value and social impact. It has been in existence for ten years and all its contents are licensed under Creative Commons BY 3.0.

As can be seen there are many initiatives at national level, but the bulk of institutional OER initiatives have a more regional focus as they are run by specific Higher Education organisations or public administrations at this level. These initiatives are listed below in the next section.

Regional OER initiatives

These initiatives are largely institutional repositories. DOAR list 114 for Spain, not all all have an explicitly educational focus, and for this reason some have been left out.
An alternative-format layout is on the wiki page List of 95 OA initiatives identified.

For clarity of layout and future automated processing the following data is listed in "nowiki" fixed-spacing format.

Conclusions

Wrapping up, the analysis of previous Spanish OER and OA initiatives shows there is a need to increase awareness, understanding and training to what are open and free content licenses and to improve the use and reuse of existing OER. It should be noted that choosing a free/open license does not automatically translate into becoming a "truly" OER. Other required aspects are availability, accessibility and responsiveness.
Of particular importance is the lack of clear policy definitions around OER. Though a wide range of initiatives exist, indeed more than in other European countries, the new Law of Education (LOMCE) does not address the issue, and this is also the case in the regions in which education is run by the regional government. If this situation were to be addressed, it would provide a framework for further development and shared understanding, and would make it easier to address the other considerations covered in the next paragraphs.
Open resources need to be available because if they cannot be found they are as useless as if they were closed. Accessible means that they clearly set how they can be used and reused (from clearly stating their authors rights policies and being eAccesible for persons suffering disabilities until promoting cultural diversity by providing multilanguage options). Responsiveness entails that feedback is welcomed and channels are provided to facilitate it. All together they reinforce in one hand, recognition and crediting for the author(s) merits, and enable in the other hand, a culture of reciprocity and networking where the flow of ideas and knowledge results in added creativity.
Finally, another important elements impeding further mainstreaming of Spanish OER initiatives relates to the issue of their discoverability and room for adaptation. Indeed the use of licenses allowing modifications by third parties and open formats enabling to change, modify and adapt contents to new targets, contexts and pedagogical objectives appear as missing assignments for most of the reviewed spanish OER initiatives. Last but not least, OER need to be accessible in the sense that they require to be found to be useful. This last element deal with deeper problems linked to Internet development and the indexing, storage and retrieval of resources. In relation to this dimension, OER initiatives need to go more in-depth in using open linked data and semantics in order to improve their visibility and thus overall usefulness,
In conclusion, Spain counts on many Open Access initiatives and offers huge potential for boosting OER and Open Education consequently, either by convincing already digitized repositories to go for open/free licenses, either by systematizing links between HE platforms offering OpenCourseWare courses. However, more sensitization towards open standards and the use of open licenses enabling remix of contents and free licenses enabling commercial uses by third parties should also be promoted.